BoE Publishes Financial Stability Report and Stress Test Results

ByRegulatory News

The Financial Policy Committee (FPC) of BoE published the financial stability report for 2018, including the results of its 2018 stress test for the banking sector in the UK. The report covers assessment of FPC on the outlook for the stability and resilience of the financial sector in the UK, along with the policy actions FPC advises to reduce and mitigate risks to stability. It also summarizes the activities of FPC over the reporting period and explains the extent to which FPC’s previous policy actions have succeeded in meeting its objectives.

Major UK banks have continued to strengthen their capital positions. They started the 2018 stress test with an aggregate common equity Tier 1 (CET1) capital ratio nearly three and a half times higher than before the global financial crisis. The 2018 stress test shows that the UK banking system is resilient to deep simultaneous recessions in the UK and global economies that are more severe overall than the global financial crisis and that are combined with large falls in asset prices and a separate stress of misconduct costs. The 2018 stress test is the first to be conducted under a new accounting standard, International Financial Reporting Standard 9 (IFRS 9). Furthermore, the results reveals that major UK banks have sufficient liquidity to withstand a major market disruption.

FPC has also reviewed a disorderly Brexit scenario, with no deal and no transition period, that leads to a severe economic shock. Based on a comparison of this scenario with the stress test, FPC judges that the UK banking system is strong enough to continue to serve UK households and businesses even in the event of a disorderly Brexit. FPC is maintaining the UK countercyclical capital buffer (CCyB) rate at 1%. It stands ready to move the UK CCyB rate in either direction as the risk environment evolves. Annexes 4 and 5 of this report set out the individual bank results and supervisory stance with respect to those banks. The results are presented forBarclays, HSBC Holdings, Lloyds Banking Group plc, Nationwide Building Society, The Royal Bank of Scotland plc, Santander UK Group Holdings plc, and Standard Chartered plc. FPC publishes the financial stability report twice a year.

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